How you can benefit from the local authority land release fund

How you can benefit from the local authority land release fund

The government has launched a £54 million package to release land for thousands of new homes. The package is part of a new cross-government partnership to make smarter use of government-owned property.

The money is earmarked for local authorities – so if that is you, read on to find out more!

What’s available?

The £54 million total consists of two funding bundles.

The first is the DCLG’s ‘Land Release Fund.’ The aim of this £45 million funding is to release unused or surplus land to help meet the ambition to unlock enough council-owned land for at least 160,000 homes by 2020. Councils can now bid for funding for land remediation and small-scale infrastructure, which will help bring sites forward for housing that would not have otherwise been developed.

The second bundle is from One Public Estate, which is making £9 million funding available to support more councils to deliver ambitious property-focused programmes.

It is expected that by 2020, councils participating in the programme will be delivering £615 million in capital receipts and £158 million running costs savings, as well as creating 44,000 new jobs and releasing land for 25,000 new homes.

Who is it aimed at?

The funding is available to any local authority with ambitions to develop more housing in its area – and that probably means every authority in the country can or should be applying for a share. As the LGA Chairman Lord Porter said when the announcement was made, “Councils are committed to building the new homes their communities need.”